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Bad Weather Is Reportedly Delaying the Israeli Ground Invasion of Gaza

Overcast skies might be allowing more time for evacuations.

Israeli tanks.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

All wars are weather stories, as much as that fact might be to the chagrin of modern militaries.

“It will be a matter of days before Israeli forces launch a ground invasion of Gaza,” Intelligencerreported a matter of days ago, after Israel notified the UN that the 1.1 million Palestinians living to the north of Wadi Gaza had 24 hours to get out. But 24 hours have come and gone, a delay that has allowed more time for frantic evacuations from the area — but also, it appears, might be due simply to the region’s overcast skies.

According to “three senior Israeli military officers” who spoke to The New York Times:

The [ground invasion of Gaza] was initially planned for the weekend, but was delayed by a few days at least in part because of weather conditions that would have made it harder for Israeli pilots and drone operators to provide ground forces with air cover, the officers said.

There have been passing rain showers in the region, with the Jordan-based weather service Arabia Weather reporting that Monday was “expected to remain partly cloudy to cloudy, with rainfall continuing at intervals in the Gaza Strip, sometimes heavy, and may cause local torrential rains in some areas.”

That means “the timing of an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza remains unclear,” The Wall Street Journalwrites, and “expected rain over the area early this week could [continue to] delay the beginning of the operation.”

Arabia Weather shows a chance of showers and overnight fog continuing through Thursday. The forecast clears up on Friday, with a sunny weekend ahead.

Yellow

Jeva Lange

Jeva is a founding staff writer at Heatmap. Her writing has also appeared in The Week, where she formerly served as executive editor and culture critic, as well as in The New York Daily News, Vice, and Gothamist, among others. Jeva lives in New York City. Read More

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Sparks

EV Sales Just Hit Their Highest Level Ever in the U.S.

A Tesla dealership.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In case you needed more convincing that buyers still like EVs just fine, sales of electric and hybrid light-duty vehicles in the U.S. rose to their highest-ever level in the third quarter of 2023, according to data released Monday by Wards Intelligence. Electric-powered vehicles (including those that are hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and purely battery-powered) made up 17.7% of all light-duty vehicle sales during that time period, while sales of gas-powered light duty vehicles fell to an all-time low of 82%.

The diverging trends were driven in part by falling prices for cleaner cars. The average cost of a battery-powered light-duty vehicle was just a hair over $50,000 in the quarter, well below their peak of $66,390 from the second quarter of 2022. That said, the numbers show that for most people, cleaner driving is still a luxurious experience — thanks in part to brands like Tesla and Rivian, battery-electric vehicles now make up 34% of the total luxury vehicle market, but are still just 2% of non-luxury sales.

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